Principals’ Emotional Intelligence as Correlate of their Administrative Effectiveness in Secondary Schools in Anambra State

Abstract

The study investigated principals’ emotional intelligence as correlate of their administrative effectiveness in public secondary schools in Anambra State. Two research questions guided the study and one hypothesis was tested at 0.05 level of significance. A correlational survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study consisted all the 263 principals in the six education zones of Anambra State. All the principals were used for the study. Two sets of researchers’-developed instrument titled “Principals’ Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire” (PEIQ) and “Principals’ Administrative Effectiveness Questionnaire” (PAEQ)) were used for data collection. The instruments were face validated by three experts and subjected to internal consistency test using Cronbach’s alpha method which yielded reliability coefficients of 0.89 for the PEIQ and 0.79 for PAEQ. Pearson’ Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient was used to analyze data for the study. The findings of the study indicated that there is a strong positive and significant relationship between principals’ emotional intelligence and their administrative effectiveness in public secondary schools in Anambra State. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that the State Ministry of Education and Post Primary School Service Commission should make provision for regular professional development programmes for principals on how to effectively improve and apply emotional intelligence in their administrative endeavors. This will help improve principals’ administrative performance and effectiveness.